It's a bunch of cheap LED "Blinkies" under a lampshade. Each blinkie has (in this case) 4 or 5 bright red LEDs and cost $0.22 (including batteries.) Yeah, multi-color would be more interesting. The full-scale instructable would have info on replacing the normal batteries with something more standard and switchable.

Extreme Glow closeouts; 100 discontinued body lights for $22. Sold for the batteries and magnets. My set were "cupids" with; I had in mind putting them inside things, so I didn't care what they looked like. There are some other attractive (smaller) closeout deals if you're inclined to fiddle with things, and even full price blinkies are about $1 each.

Sure - what is it? If I had to hazard a guess, I'd say a bunch of red LEDs hooked up to a microprocessor... Definitely far more sophisticated than the majority of the submission so far. Plus it does look kinda cool.